You may remember Joe McGinniss as the reporter who moved in next door to Sarah Palin in 2008 to write an exposé about her. But if you look further back, you will be reminded that McGinniss is also the author of "Fatal Vision" (1983), a non-fiction account of the story of former Green Beret Jeffrey MacDonald, who is currently serving three life sentences for the murders of his wife and children.
McGinniss was granted access to MacDonald's defense with the understanding that McGinniss's book would help to exonerate MacDonald. Instead, McGinniss says that while working on the book he changed his views and when he ultimately published "Fatal Vision" the book argued that the defendant was guilty. MacDonald sued McGinniss in 1984, saying that McGinniss continued to work with him long after changing his mind about the case, and yet failed to tell him for fear of losing access. McGinnisss's publisher settled the case with MacDonald for $325,000.
New Yorker writer Janet Macolm used the McGinniss-MacDonald relationship as the basis for a controversial work of her own, her 1990 book "The Journalist and the Murderer."
